It’s the night of the new moon, which means it’s time to read another poem from Mary Oliver’s Twelve Moons. Today’s poem is Mussels.
Mussels grow thickly on our homestead beach. They mass so compactly in most places that they don’t crush under our feet. We rely on them as traction to safely cross our rocks, which are made treacherously slick by black algae much of the year. In many places, especially deeper in the water, they grow to several inches long.
They create a special problem for us, a dilemma. They are delicious steamed. They’re a close source of free, easy to collect protein. Unfortunately, they seem to be the most likely mollusk around to be contaminated by the algae that produces Paralytic Shellfish Poison (PSP). Apparently, they get it often, and retain it longer than most of their kind. Continue reading